The Machine to Machine (M2M) means all technologies and methods for establishing connection between machines. The M2M idea appeared in the 1990s, but it just remained at theory stage. After 2000, with the development of mobile communication technology, it is possible to use the mobile communication technology to implement networking of machines. The M2M service appeared on the market in about 2002, and developed rapidly in the following years; the M2M service becomes the focus of many communication device suppliers and telecom operators. At present, people are outnumbered by machines around the world, so a good market prospect of the M2M technology may be foreseen.
Research on application scenarios of M2M communication shows that providing the M2M communication on a mobile network has a potential market prospect. However, the M2M service presents many new requirements to the system; for enhancing competitiveness of the mobile network in this aspect, it is necessary to optimize the existing mobile network so as to support the M2M communication more effectively.
The existing mobile communication network is designed mainly aiming at the communication between human and human, the communication between machine and machine and the communication between human and machine are optimized insufficiently. Besides, how to provide the M2M communication service at a low cost by the operators is also the key to success of the M2M communication deployment.
Based on the situation above, it is necessary to research a solution that the mobile network supports the M2M communication; the solution is required to reuse the existing network to the greatest extent, and reduce influence of a lot of M2M communication on network and the complexity of operation and maintenance.
At present, the telecommunications market competition is increasingly fierce, the charge keeps plummeting, the profit margin of the operators is declining, and the communication market based on people is getting saturated, so the M2M is a brand-new development opportunity for the operators.
For using mobile network resources effectively, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) presents the MTC, namely service of Machine to Machine communication and Machine to Man communication, whose scope is far beyond the past Human to Human (H2H) communication; the MTC is greatly different from existing H2H communication mode in access control, charge, security, Quality of Service (QoS), service mode and other aspects.
In a 3GPP Evolved Packet System (EPS) architecture, the EPS includes a radio access network (e.g., a UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN), an Evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN), a GSM/EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN)) and a core network, an Evolved Packet Core (EPC) includes a Mobility Management Entity (MME), a Serving Gateway, a Packet Data Network Gateway (PGW) and other network elements, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) core network includes a Service GPRS Support Node (SGSN) and other elements; the E-UTRAN includes an Evolved Node B (eNB).
MTC UE trigger is one of basic requirements for an MTC system; concerns of the requirement are that: for controlling communication of a piece of MTC UE, a way of initiating poll by an MTC server can be adopted to communicate; for communication initiated by the MTC UE, sometimes the MTC server is required to poll data from the MTC UE. If the MTC server fails to inquire or an IP address of the MTC UE is not available, the MTC server can use the MTC UE trigger to establish communication with the MTC UE. If a network cannot trigger the MTC UE, the network reports the MTC server that the MTC UE trigger is failed, and the MTC UE trigger is implemented in the 3GPP through control plane signalling.
The MTC UE trigger includes Mobile Originated (MO) and Mobile Terminating (MT), namely includes that the MTC UE sends or receives information.
For implementing effective transmission of an MTC UE trigger request, a solution presented includes: sending MTC UE trigger information through a T4 interface, or sending MTC UE trigger information through T5 interface control plane signalling, or sending MTC trigger information through a Gi/SGi interface user plane. For the way of sending the MTC UE trigger information through the control plane signalling, the MTC server sends the control plane signalling including the MTC UE trigger information to a network node, the network node parses the MTC UE trigger information in the control plane signalling, and then sends the MTC UE trigger information to a piece of UE. An MTC architecture in the 3GPP is shown in FIG. 1; in a user plane, an MTC application connecting an MTC user communicates with the MTC server through an Application Programming Interface (API), or directly communicates with a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN)/PGW/Evolved Packet Data Gateway (EPDG) in a 3GPP network through the Gi/SGi interface; the MTC server communicates with the GGSN/PGW/EPDG through an MTCi interface; the GGSN/PGW/EPDG communicates with the UE through a Radio Access Network (RAN); in a control plane, the MTC server sends the control plane signalling including the MTC UE trigger information to an MTC Inter-Working Function (MTC-IWF) through an MTCsp interface, or sends the control plane signalling including the MTC UE trigger information to a Short Message Service-Service Centre (SMS-SC)/IP-Short Message-Gateway (IP-SM-GW) through an MTCsms interface; the MTC-IWF or the SMS-SC/IP-SM-GW sends the control plane signalling to the MME/SGSN or a Gateway MSC For Short Message Service (SMS-GMSC) or an SMS router or a Mobile-services Switching Centre (MSC) or a Visitor Location Register (VLR), and then sends to the UE through the RAN; wherein, the MME/SGSN can also acquire, through a Gr/S6a/S6d interface, the control plane signalling from a Home Subscriber Server (HSS) or a Home Location Register (HLR).
A requirement for the MTC UE group is made in the 3GPP TS22.368, for example, the MTC server wants to collect status information of multiple pieces of MTC UE, including: the system relates a piece of MTC UE to a single MTC group; each MTC function based on group is applicable to each member in the MTC group; an identity of the MTC group in the 3GPP network is unique.
A solution on how to trigger a group of MTC UE has not been presented in related technologies.